How do we actually know if our teams are doing well? Is gut instinct enough? Furthermore, in a rapidly growing organization such as Spotify, how can we ensure some sort of consistency in our baseline level of Agile knowledge across the technology, product, and design organization? In this presentation, I’ve shared techniques we have developed and use at Spotify to benchmark health and performance for our teams and some tactics we use to bring them closer to—and beyond!—being the best teams they can be.

1. Measuring Team
Health At Spotify
From Gut Feel To Hard Data
Danielle Jabin

2. What is great? How do
we knowwhen we’re
there?

3. You can’t manage what
you don’t measure.

4. Making teams better,
people happier, and
long-termvalue
deliverysustainable.

5. What do we
associate with
being Agile?

6. Breaking down work
into stories and stories
into tasks

7. Prioritizing said tasks

8. Delivering said tasks
according to
prioritization

9. Measuring cycle time,
velocity,value delivered

10. We add rules on
top of that

11. Tasks must be less than
X points with no more
thanYpoints per sprint

12. Standups must be
completed in under 10
minutes

13. And on and on…

15. End goal: achieve
sustainable long-term
value delivery

16. There are a lot ofways
to get there.

17. If our focus is too much
in the weeds…

18. …we’ll miss the big
picture.

19. What is it that makes a
team high performing
then?

20. Sometimes we relyon
gut feel.

21. Gut feel is notoriously
flawed.

23. You can’t manage what
you don’t measure.

24. The Characteristics
• Aware of Skills
• Embrace and Adapt to Change
• Quality Discipline
• Delivers Results
• Ownership and Responsibility
• Iterative Discipline
• Continuous Improvement
• Fast Decision-making With
Shared Understanding
• Positive Energy
• Collaboration
• Exceeding Expectations
• Visualization
• Focus and Clear Purpose
• Technical Proficiency
• Small Teams
• Intra-team Feedback
• Customer Engagement
• Presence
• Celebrates Wins and Learnings

25. How can we make sure
these conversations are
happening?

26. Squad Reflections

28. The Statements
1. It is clear to me why our team
exists.
2. It is clear to me who benefits
from the things we deliver.
3. I feel that my team is able to
influence the world of Spotify.
4. I'm happy with how frequently
we deliver value to our users.
5. I'm proud of the value we deliver
to our users.
6. We regularly identify the most
appropriate way forward.
7. We continuously improve our
way of working.
8. I give feedback to my team
members.
9. I get feedback from my team
members.
10. I feel a sense of purpose when
working on this team.
11. We get support from the rest of
the organization.

29. The Process

30. Gather the entire team in a room

31. Read each statement aloud
• Rate from 1 to 10 (with 1 being
strongly disagree and 10 being
strongly agree)
• Repeat it 1-2 times so people can absorb it
• Reveal at the same time

32. Facilitate a discussion around each
statement
• “Why do we feel this way?”
• “X, you rated this a 6. What would it
take for you to give it a 9 or 10 rating
next time? What changes would you
need to see?”
• “Y, you rated this a 10 whereas the rest
of the team rated this at 5 on average.
Where do you think we’re excelling in
this area?

33. Take notes during the discussion
• Direct quotes and paraphrasing as
opposed to analysis and
interpretation

34. Review discussion notes and organize
them into themes that emerge
• Discuss findings with the
team
• What do they think?
• What do they want to focus on?
• The team needs to have a
sense of ownership of their
continuous improvement

35. Re-evaluate in 3 – 6 months
• Does the team feel satisfied
with the progress made? Do
they have new improvement
points this time? Woohoo!
• Do the same points come up
as last time? :( Perhaps it’s
time to think more critically
about how to have more
effective and long-lasting
impact. There could be many
reasons for this.
• Dig deeper with a root cause
analysis.

36. Available at
www.daniellejabin.com/blog

37. Real-life
Examples!

38. "I don’t always reflect on orrealize how
muchvalue it isthatwe’re delivering.”
“We do delivera shitload ofstuff, but
once something slows down it feels like
you’re not delivering (whenyou really
are).”

39. The Characteristics
• Aware of Skills
• Embrace and Adapt to Change
• Quality Discipline
• Delivers Results
• Ownership and Responsibility
• Iterative Discipline
• Continuous Improvement
• Fast Decision-making With
Shared Understanding
• Positive Energy
• Collaboration
• Exceeding Expectations
• Visualization
• Focus and Clear Purpose
• Technical Proficiency
• Small Teams
• Intra-team Feedback
• Customer Engagement
• Presence
• Celebrates Wins and Learnings

40. "I don’t always reflect on orrealize how
muchvalue it isthatwe’re delivering.”
“We do delivera shitload ofstuff, but
once something slows down it feels like
you’re not delivering (whenyou really
are).”
Pattern: Celebrates Wins and Learnings

41. How do we fix that?

43. "We knowthere arethingsthatwe can
improve, butwe don’t dothem. We don’t
followthrough. It’s notthatwe’re not
aware, it’sthatwe don’t dothem.”

44. The Characteristics
• Aware of Skills
• Embrace and Adapt to Change
• Quality Discipline
• Delivers Results
• Ownership and Responsibility
• Iterative Discipline
• Continuous Improvement
• Fast Decision-making With
Shared Understanding
• Positive Energy
• Collaboration
• Exceeding Expectations
• Visualization
• Focus and Clear Purpose
• Technical Proficiency
• Small Teams
• Intra-team Feedback
• Customer Engagement
• Presence
• Celebrates Wins and Learnings

45. "We knowthere arethingsthatwe can
improve, butwe don’t dothem. We don’t
followthrough. It’s notthatwe’re not
aware, it’sthatwe don’t dothem.”
Pattern: Iterative Discipline

46. How do we fix that?

48. Make it your own!
• What elements are core to your culture? What do you value?
• What are your expectations on/from teams?

49. Squad Reflections helps
us build a more
comprehensiveview of
a team’s health in a way
that even strictAgile
adherence can’t.

50. You can’t manage what
you don’t measure!

52. Questions?
www.daniellejabin.com/blog

53. Thank You!

54. Appendix

55. The Process
• Gather the entire team in a room
• Read each statement aloud
• Rate from 1 to 10 (with 1 being strongly
disagree and 10 being strongly agree)
• Reveal at the same time
• Facilitate a discussion around
each question
• “Why do we feel this way?”
• “X, you rated this a 6. What would it take
for you to give it a 9 or 10 rating next
time? What changes would you need to
see.”
• “Y, you rated this a 10 whereas the rest of
the team rated this at 5 on average.
Where do you think we’re excelling in this
area?”
• Take notes during the discussion
• Direct quotes as opposed to analysis and
interpretation
• Review discussion notes and
organize them into themes
• Discuss findings with the teams
• The team needs to have a sense of
ownership of their continuous
improvement
• Identify 2 - 3 focus areas
• Re-evaluate in 3 - 6 months